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preestablished harmony

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

preestablished harmony, in the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), a postulate to explain the apparent relations of causality among monads (infinitesimal psychophysical entities), where no true causality exists. When a change occurs within a single monad, every other monad in the universe spontaneously reflects this change inasmuch as God, in a single creative act at the beginning of time, synchronized the universe by establishing once and for all a harmony between all monads. The doctrine implies that there are no genuine causal interactions between mind and body.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.